Wednesday, September 27, 2006

The Spice Trader




There's nothing like a glorious, sunny day to take a stroll along Queen Street West in Toronto. It's a street "in transition" - meaning there's everything from used furniture and appliance stores and tons of dollar stores on one end of the spectrum to cool art galleries, trendy local designer fashion shops and hip pint-sized restaurants, to say nothing about the people watching opportunities.

One of my favorite shops is The Spice Trader. As the name implies they have spices from around the world and I love shopping there. For one thing, it's so zen and peaceful, with stunning presentations, as you can see.


Another reason to go there is the variety and quality of their products. Today I bought some Ceylon Cinnamon, last time was lavender and vanilla beans. What can I say besides spectacular. In fact, don't tell anyone, but sometimes I just open the tin to take a sniff. It transports me to a wonderful exotic place - bye bye stress!

Lastly, the owners Allison Johnston and Neil Bougourd are so passionate about their business that it's truly contagious. Stay tuned for a chat with them in the next couple of weeks.

In the meantime, what wonderful dish will I use my latest purchase for?

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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

my oh my .... now if i could only get MY gazillion spices organized to look like that!! queen st. w. is great in that it is so varied.

thanx for the link up, ruth. i added a picture of the cake you mentioned (btw). so much to do, so little time.

regards,
/bb

Anonymous said...

that is a wonderful looking shop with that collection of spices. they don't have malabar peppercorns (promoting it because its from my native place.:))
btw, i tried frying green tomatoes and toast and now i love it. never knew that despite all the tomatoes lying around.

Pepper said...

Cinnamon, hmmm. Cinnamon onions. Cut them in slices and brush with butter that has cinnamon mixed in and broil on both sides (grill is wonderful, too.)

Ruth Daniels said...

BB - I must say, going there does inspire me to organize my spices - if only I had the room!!! BTW - the cake looks as good as it tastes.

Shaheen - I'll I'll have to purposefully hunt for malabar peppercorns - what are they exactly? And how do they differ from black peppercorns I find here?

Pepper, what a cool idea - cinnamon onions. Do you use strong or sweet onions for this? Fall is here and it's perfect to go with roasts.